"Ghostbusters" (2016) Review

After about 30 years and countless failed attempts to turn the original Ghostbusters into a trilogy, Sony has hit the reset button and put director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, The Heat) in charge of one of the most beloved comedy franchises in cinema history.

Honestly, though, if it were really as "beloved" as the vocal minority on the internet would have you believe, there would probably be no less than eight decent Ghostbusters movies and a theme park. Instead all we've had are two movies (only one of which is any good), a short-lived cartoon, a bunch of mediocre video games, and a flavor of Hi-C if you can count that. Ecto Cooler was gone for nearly 30 years!

Having seen Feig's all-new Ghostbusters movie (this makes three), I can promise that you're childhood isn't ruined just because some silly girls wanted to come play for two hours of your miserable life. Heck, they literally brought your favorite neon green refreshment back just for you! Anyone who brings Ecto Cooler is A-OK in my book.

Suffice it to say, that's not a ringing endorsement of the entire film. It has plenty of flaws, but Ghostbusters (2016) earns a fair shake from someone who was open-minded about the casting but was extremely let down by the trailers. 

The story they go with here isn't entirely different from the original. Here, paranormal enthusiast and university professor Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) is let go just as she's about to be given tenure. With nowhere else to go, she turns to estranged colleague Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) with whom Erin co-authored a book about the paranormal. Since Abby and Erin originally parted ways, Abby has been working with Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), a brilliant and eccentric engineer, to try and prove the existence of ghosts. Following a close encounter at a local mansion-turned-museum, the girls enlist Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), an MTA officer with a knack for New York history. Together they investigate myriad disturbances which all turn out to be part of a much larger scheme.

Feig has stated that he wanted to populate this movie with the funniest people he knows, all of whom happen to be women. We've all seen this principle cast do hilarious work when given the right material. If Feig thinks these are the four funniest women on the planet, then, for the love of Cinema, get them a script to show for it! Having loved Bridesmaids and The Heat, almost none of the comedy in Ghostbusters worked for me. Wiig is simply never funny, McCarthy is perhaps too reigned in, and Jones just shouts the entire movie. The original cast returns for cameos, but even they feel mostly forced. The only person with any nuance whatsoever is McKinnon as Holtzmann, whose archetype leans heaviest on Dr. Peter Venkman with the smarts of Egon to boot. You can tell she has a manic, perhaps even sociopathic, energy lurking just below the surface waiting to bust out. And, by God, it does. The final act of the movie loses itself a bit, but Holtzmann finally lets loose on a few ghosts in her own little Matrix-like sequence. After waiting the whole movie to really feel something special, that was the moment that had me like "YAAAAAAASSSSSSS!!!!!"

In truth, the character who really made me laugh the most was Chris Hemsworth as Kevin, the Ghostbusters' bumbling receptionist. It's so refreshingly off-type for the actor that one can't help but fall for his confident comic timing and innocent charm. 

Several reviews have criticized Feig for populating this universe with male characters who are all ignorant knuckleheads while the girls appear to be the only ones capable of "bringing balance to the Force," so to speak. It's this reviewer's understanding that feminism is about equality, not making one gender look better than the other. If that's the case, any "feminist" agenda this movie may purport to have is undermined from the start. That said, I thought the guys in this movie were far more interesting than the girls, apart from McKinnon. I enjoyed Hemsworth, and the villain Rowan (Neil Casey) works for this plot despite having generally little to do until the final act. Also, Andy Garcia as the mayor of New York City is priceless. The joke about being the mayor from the movie Jaws killed me!

What ultimately won me over were the film's generally strong horror-movie elements and stellar visual effects. Most of the scenes in that mansion at the beginning are executed with a firm understanding of what makes our skin crawl in haunted house movies. A door opens on its own over here as candles are snuffed out by a chilly breeze over there. The ghosts also are much scarier-looking here than in previous installments thanks to advances in CGI. Most of them look like the brainchildren of Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim), a filmmaker with a knack for dreaming up horrifying monsters. 

At the end of the day, the new Ghostbusters is worth your time. After the tapestry of vitriol that's hung over this film since its inception, I wish it could've been even better. It probably won't be enough to shut the vocal minority up, but it generally delivers what you'd expect from a summer blockbuster. There's nothing wrong with that. Its place in the zeitgeist and underlying message/agenda should serve as interesting topics of discussion going forward.

(P.S. It's absolutely better than Ghostbusters II.)

B-